I took my 69 into the shop today for an wheel alignment and straighten the steering wheel out because it was slightly out. The alignment guy said he had to put it 180 deg out because there was no adjustment left so the steering wheel is upside down now. He said I could disconnect the rag joint and turn the steering wheel back 180 deg and bolt it back up. Does this sound right??
I installed a horn button and cancelling cam this winter and the steering wheel ended up out of center. The wheel was not installed properly when there was not a horn button, when I installed the horn button and cancelling cam things had to go back together only one way and the steering wheel ended up off center. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

On my 68, the rag joint only goes on one way, you can't flip it 180 degrees.
If the steering box is centered, the wheel turns lock to lock,and the alignment guy did everything correct, then remove the steering wheel and recenter it. On mine, there was a factory mark on the shaft showing the correct orientation.

Somewhere on the web, there is an excellant article written by a GM steering engineer, that explains it all.
Sorry, I don't have it bookmarked.

To see if your steering wheel is truly out 180 degrees without taking the horn apart to see if the horn contact insulator sleeve is at 11 o'clock, see if the turn signal cancels the same both ways. Put the front end in the air a little. With the car off, turn on the right turn signal. Turn the wheel to the right a half to three quarters of a turn, then back to the left. The signal should cancel just after you start turning the wheel back to the left. Do the same for the left turn signal. If your wheel is out of phase, one will take more steering wheel rotation to cancel.

You can switch it at the rag joint if it is out. Just take the two bolts out, take the two nuts off the centering pins and pull them out, and rotate your steering column 180 degrees and reassemble the rag joint. The original bolts are two different sizes, so if yours are original then you just switch them. If it were not possible to rotate at the rag joint, the alignment guy would not have been able to do it.

With your steering box centered, you should be able to look down and see the nut head on the steering box shaft clamp pointing straight up. There should also be a flat spot on the steering box shaft that is straight up. The pitman arm should be pointing straight ahead. You should have the same distance from the frame rails to the ends of the centerlink on both sides. There is a mark on your end of your steering column spline shaft (under the horn button) that points to 12 o'clock when it is straight up.

To get it back together centered, make sure the steering box is on center. The pitman arm should be pointing straight ahead and you should have the nut head and flat spot on the shaft pointing straight up. Wrap the centering pins that go in the rag joint with masking tape until they are built up to the size of the cutouts in the steering column mounting flange and put them back in. That will help center your steering column to the steering box. If the wheel is on right, then it should be centered as well.

Also measure you tie rod assemblies to see if they are roughly the same length. Once you have your steering box centered and steering wheel on right, it should just be a matter of using the tie rods to align the front wheels back up.

When you said your alignment guy said there was no adjustment left, can you clarify? Do you mean when he was aligning it he had to turn the wheel a half turn because he ran out of adjustment on the tie rods? Or when he was trying to center the wheel he ran out of adjustment? If he truly had the steering box on center when he was aligning it than it doesn't seem like he would've had to do anything like that unless the car had been in some kind of accident at some point and some component is off.

Just a few observations on my part.
1. A 69 with a lock plate the wheel only goes one way with maybe three splines adjustment. NO way it's on upside down if the lock plate is present.
2. If he ran out of adjustment on the tie rod ends something is likely bent somewhere. places to look include steering arms, and the box it self, rear end to front sub alignment can cause this too.
3. Have steering parts been recently replaced? possible that the wrong parts have been installed making it impossible to shorten one tie rod correctly.
4. with the wheels straight ahead the inner tie rod end should line up with the lower control arm bolts and the two sides tie rod assemblies should be the same length with in an inch or so.

Jeff

Thanks for the help guys, looks like I have some investigating to do. Looks like I will be learning a lot about steering this week. Thanks

Here is a link to a paper that I authored on first gen Camaro steering wheel centering although Steiner did a pretty good job of summurizing it.

http://jimshea.corvettefaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/steeringsystemcenteringc3rev18my06pdf.pdf

Jim

Here is a link to a paper that I authored on first gen Camaro steering wheel centering although Steiner did a pretty good job of summurizing it.

http://jimshea.corvettefaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/steeringsystemcenteringc3rev18my06pdf.pdf

Jim

You don't think I knew all that stuff on my own, do you? At least it came from memory.

I've got a copy of your paper in my garage. Thanks for writing it up.

Hey, if you wind up needing a new rag joint I wanted to let you know that the one from D&R Classic is a good one and is only $12. I just put one in mine. The old one used two regular bolts with washers to couple it to the steering column and they were small enough that they would allow you to get it tightened a little off. Also, the centering pins were threaded and used a nut to hold them to the steering box flange. Very sloppy.

The new one has centering pins and bolts that have to be greased a little and pressed into the rag joint. The bolts are also the correct 5/16 and 3/8 with large shoulders and fine thread. The 5/16 is a copper color. The centering pins slip into the steering box flange and are not threaded. With everything being the exact size of the holes, there's pretty much no chance of getting the steering column off a little when connecting it to the box. The only thing the kit didn't have was the two metal reinforcing plates that go under the two bolt heads. Luckily, those were one of the few correct things my car still had on it.

It's a very tight squeeze to get the rag joint in fully assembled but can be done. I could not get the leverage to press the bolts/pins in with the rag joint in position, so that's how I did it. Just take the four bolts off the bottom side of the steering column brace inside the car and pull the column in as far in as you can. Then once the rag joint is in, slide it into position on the box flange and push the steering column back down. Do it a little at a time so you can get the bolts lined up or else you may push them back out of the rag joint. Make sure is it rotated so that the bolts will go in the right holes on the steering column flange as well because one is a 5/16 and one is a 3/8. Be prepared to get pricked by the steel wire in the rag joint at least a hundred times.

Thanks for all the help and advice, The steering wheel is now right side up. It took a bit of work to spin the rag coupler but its fixed now, thanks